Andros Townsend Escapes Injury in Bizarre Pitch Roller Incident

Andros Townsend has endured cold, wet nights at Stoke. He probably never imagined a warm evening in Thailand would be more dangerous.

The former England winger escaped serious injury in a bizarre incident on Saturday when he was run over by a pitch roller before a Thai League 1 match.

Townsend, now 35 and playing for PT Prachuap, was going through his warm-up at Pattani when chaos suddenly broke out on the touchline. A member of staff appeared to lose control of a heavy roller used to flatten the playing surface, sending it veering towards the players.

Townsend was caught. His left leg briefly became trapped under the machine as it rolled over him, drawing gasps from those nearby. Remarkably, he got up and walked away, unhurt.

The scare did not keep him out of the game. He came off the bench late on as PT Prachuap wrapped up a 3-0 victory, the incident quickly turning from potential disaster into one of the most surreal moments of his career.

True to character, Townsend met it with humour. On Instagram he joked that playing away at Stoke “wasn't so bad after all”, a nod to his own recent post comparing a sun-soaked Thai away day with the famously unforgiving conditions at Stoke's Bet365 Stadium.

Thirteen caps for England, years in the Premier League with Tottenham, Crystal Palace and Luton, and now this: almost taken out by a groundskeeping machine in southern Thailand.

Stoke away suddenly feels a lot more straightforward.